God’s Holiness Unveiled

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Transcript:

Well, would you turn with me this morning to Hebrews chapter 10? Hebrews chapter 10. We’re going to finish up this series that I’ve been doing on the birth of Jesus and his life on earth and how both of those things affect our relationship with God today.

And in Hebrews chapter 10, we’re going to see how Jesus opened up the Father’s presence to us, how he pulled back the curtain, as the Bible gives us that picture, and brought us right into the throne room of God. We’re going to see that in Hebrews chapter 10. If you turn there with me, we’re going to start in verse 19 this morning.

Hebrews chapter 10, starting in verse 19, and we’re going to look at about four verses this morning. It says, Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain that is through his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.

Now, the picture he gives there is full of Old Testament imagery of the temple and how people used to relate to God. And for us to understand that, we need to go back in time, at least mentally this morning. I haven’t invented time travel.

But we need to, in our minds, go back and understand how the readers would have understood this. Because the original audience of the book of Hebrews was made up of Jewish people. They would have understood this.

You go back through Israel’s history of how they related to God, and it really started in the Garden of Eden. And you can look at Genesis chapter 3, and you can see that God was in the habit of walking with mankind in the Garden. He was in the habit of calling them by name.

He was in the habit of spending this time in fellowship with them. How would you like to be able to. .

. Again, I don’t know that God was in a physical body at that time because God is spirit. I don’t know how all that worked.

I just know somehow the presence of God was with them in the garden. They were there with Him in a way that they could hear Him. They could spend that time with Him.

How would you like to have that kind of relationship with God where He just came and spent time with you and you knew He was there and you felt His presence and that was not even in question. That’s what mankind was created to have. And that’s what Adam and Eve had until they messed it up there in Genesis chapter 3 with the problem of sin.

Now after that, there were times where God was more evident to his people than at other times. We see that Moses was able to meet with God, but he had to hide his face. He couldn’t look at God in his face or he would die.

We know that God spoke to him through the burning bush. We know that Moses would go up on the mountain to meet with God, but the rest of Israel was told they couldn’t even touch the mountain or they would die. So for Israel, there were some people who had access to God, although it was limited.

And for most of the people, they only had this indirect access. They knew about God through what God revealed to Moses and Moses brought down to them. The relationship was always a step removed.

And they might be at times led by a pillar of fire at night or a pillar of cloud by day. They were led through the wilderness with that. And that was the presence of God among them.

But we don’t see really evidence in the scripture of them having a relationship with the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire. So for Israel, ever since sin entered the picture, mankind had been estranged from God. Israel had been distant from God.

And there were a few leaders who had a little bit closer relationship to God, but there was still some distance there even for them. Now think about how under Moses’ leadership, God led them to put together the tabernacle. And if you’re not familiar, I know the ladies’ class.

Y’all have been learning about the tabernacle lately, haven’t you? For those who are not in that class, the tabernacle is a fascinating thing. It was a tent where they would carry the Ark of the Covenant around, and it was said that the presence of God dwelt in this tent.

And I say tent, it’s not like you’d go down to Walmart and buy a tent to take camping. It was an elaborate thing with these heavy curtains. And there’s an outer court to the tabernacle where some of the people could come in.

And there’s an inner court to the tabernacle where fewer of the people could come in. And when you get right to the center of the tabernacle where the presence of God was said to dwell, you had the innermost court, the Holy of Holies, where they kept the Ark of the Covenant, And God’s presence was there, and the high priest could go in on certain occasions, bringing a blood sacrifice before him for the people. Now that tabernacle was sort of a game changer for Israel, because now they have a visible symbol of God’s presence.

Because we know that tabernacle goes with us wherever we go. They were wandering in the wilderness at that time. They’d have to take the tabernacle down, put it up constantly every time they stopped at a place.

but that tabernacle went with them and it was set up and they knew wherever they went, God was with them. And yet not every person could just enter into the Holy of Holies and commune with God one-on-one. They had a connection, but it was still a little bit at arm’s length.

And once God finally brought them into the land that he’d promised to them, he led them to build a temple under King Solomon. Now we’re talking probably 600 or more years after Moses at that time. 600 years.

Can you imagine having to take down and put up the tabernacle for 600 years over and over? That would get old real fast, wouldn’t it? I didn’t even put up Christmas decorations this year because I knew it was a week shorter because Thanksgiving was so late and I didn’t want to turn around and have to take them back down again.

All right? Unless it was too cold. I can’t imagine taking the tabernacle down and storing it away and transporting it and then putting it back up and having to make sure everything’s right for 600 years.

They finally, under King Solomon, were able to build a temple. And that for them was incredible too because it was a permanent symbol of God’s presence among them. But the setup was very close to what the setup of the tabernacle was.

You had this outer court, and you had the inner court, and you had the innermost place, the Holy of Holies. That’s where they kept the Ark of the Covenant. And again, only certain people could go in, and only at certain times, and only for certain reasons.

So you had this symbol of God’s presence among you. You knew that God was among your people in a general sense, but as far as you or me being able to enter into the Holy of Holies and commune with God one-on-one, there was no shot. You would die, because the holiness of God would consume us in our sin.

that’s why only the high priest could go in he was a sinner too but he had to go in bearing a a blood sacrifice on behalf of the people for a year so again they had this connection with god through the temple through the tabernacle but it still was a connection where they were at arm’s length kind of like I get asked from time to time oh do you know so and so I know who they are you know they if I texted them today they’d have no idea who I am I called them who’s this they don’t know me. There’s a connection there in the sense that I know who they are, but we don’t actually know each other. And that’s sort of how it was for most of Israel and God.

Now, did they follow his law? Did they learn his law? Did they try to obey him?

Did they try to honor him? Absolutely. I’m not denying that Israel had some semblance of a relationship with God, but if you compare what they had under the temple and the tabernacle to what they were supposed to have in the Garden of Eden, there was no comparison.

See, the problem was sin. The problem was that our sin separated us from God. We think, oh, how harsh that God would keep us at arm’s length from himself.

No, we did that through our sin, because God’s holiness cannot tolerate sin in its presence, and we embraced sin anyway. And so our relationship with God had to be one where we were at arm’s length. And then we get to this in the book of Hebrews, where the writer of Hebrews uses this Old Testament imagery to help us understand what Jesus had done.

As I said, the temple represented God, because he’s talking about the temple here in chapter 10. The temple represented God’s presence among the nation of Israel, but even that connection was indirect because the people still did not have direct access to the presence of God. They couldn’t just come before God anytime they wanted to.

You had the, there was the veil in the temple. I’ve described the Holy of Holies to you and the, and where the Ark of the Covenant set, there was a huge veil, a huge curtain, pretty thick material from the descriptions I’ve seen. This huge curtain that stood in the middle where you could not go through this curtain.

This curtain was a barrier between you and the presence of God. And it describes the veil. It describes the curtain in chapter 10.

In the temple, there was this veil. In the temple, there were priests who had to go make intercession on our behalf. We couldn’t just come into God’s presence.

We needed somebody to go before us with a peace offering so that we would be okay with God for the next year or however long that particular sacrifice lasted. And these sacrifices were required to make peace between us and God. So you see that there’s connection, but there’s also separation because we’ve got this veil in the middle.

We’ve got these priests in between us and God. We’ve got the need for sacrifices coming between us and God. And all of this is because sin has separated us from a holy God.

And that’s the world that Jesus was born into. I’ve spent the whole month of December talking about how Jesus is God with us. And we take for granted that he was God with us.

We take for granted what that means. For us to understand how revolutionary that was, we need to go back to that mindset. I’m not saying we need to adopt that mindset.

We just need to understand that mindset. that they lived in, that there was a connection with God, but it was an arm’s length connection with God. It was an indirect connection with God.

And then suddenly a baby is born in Bethlehem that the prophets have said is not just God near us, is not just God adjacent to us, but is God with us. And because of what that baby grew up to do and to become, We have direct access to God. See, the problem is that our sin has separated us from God.

That’s as true for us as it was for Israel, as it was for Adam and Eve. Our sin has separated us from a holy God. But the solution, God’s solution, was to give us access to the Father through Jesus Christ. We have access to the Father through Jesus Christ. Verse 19 tells us that we can boldly enter his sanctuary.

It says, therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary. Because of Jesus, we’re now invited. We’re not standing outside the Holy of Holies with this distant connection to God.

We are actually invited to come into His sanctuary. And we’re not coming cowering. We’re not coming in fear.

The kids and I watched a documentary the other day about dogs on the National Geographic channel, and it was describing the way they tuck their tails, different things they do with their tails. And you know, you’ll tuck your tail when you’re afraid, the dog will. We’re not coming to God with our tails tucked between our legs, terrified.

It says we’re able to come boldly into his sanctuary. Now that doesn’t mean that he works for us. If you get the idea from that, that we can just sort of make God do what we want.

Hey, garon, you know, oh boy, that’s the wrong idea. Coming boldly doesn’t mean that God works for us. What it means is that he has given us the right to be there.

We have every right to be there. Not because of anything we’ve done, but because of what Jesus did. He said we have the boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus.

We have the right to enter his sanctuary. Hebrews chapter 4 tells us to come boldly before the throne of grace. This is not a typo, all right?

in one chapter, or where the writer of Hebrews got overly excited and said something he didn’t mean, he said it somewhere else too. By the way, that doesn’t happen in Scripture. But I’m saying, if you think that, that he just got a little overexcited, no, it also says in Hebrews chapter 4, come boldly before the throne of grace, that you may find grace and mercy and help in times of trouble.

It tells us multiple times, come boldly before God’s presence. It’s not because we deserve to come before him. It’s not because we deserve to be there, but it’s because he has given us the right to be there through Jesus Christ. Because of Jesus.

So what’s this throne of, what’s this throne of grace? What’s this entering into the sanctuary that you’re talking about? What this means, okay, what this means for us today is that sinners like you and me are now able to have a relationship with God, a direct relationship with God, solely because of what Jesus Christ did for us.

Verse 19 tells us that His blood was enough to make peace between us and God so that we could enter into His sanctuary with boldness. See, we don’t have to come in with sacrifices and offerings. We don’t have to come in offering the blood of bulls and goats and hoping that it’s going to be enough.

We don’t have to come in hoping that our previous sacrifice hasn’t worn off and hoping, just hoping that we’re still in a right relationship with God. Now he ties this here in verse 19 to the blood of Jesus. And he says that the blood was enough to make peace between us and God so that we could enter his sanctuary.

And if we’re in any doubt that that blood was enough, the book of Hebrews makes it abundantly clear that with one offering, with one once-for-all sacrifice, Jesus accomplished what all the priests and all the religious leaders with all their rituals combined never could. With that one act of sacrifice, he made peace between us and God forever. His blood was enough for us to come into the sanctuary.

We’re invited into the presence of God. We’re invited to come in with boldness without worrying about sacrifices because His sacrifice, His blood, was enough. Then we get to verse 20 where it says, He has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain that is through His flesh.

And this verse equates His flesh with a curtain, and I believe it’s painting a picture of that curtain that stood outside the Holy of Holies in the temple. That curtain that separated the people from God. That curtain that roped off a holy God just out of reach from sinful man.

And we know, the reason I think he draws this comparison in here, is because we know from the Gospels that when Jesus Christ died, When his body died on that cross, we know that the curtain in the temple, the veil in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And as I understand it, it was a pretty big curtain. And it wasn’t torn from bottom to top.

There was nobody standing there underneath unraveling the curtain. And as I understand it, it was a pretty thick, heavy-duty curtain too that, you know, probably be a little bit like ripping a phone book. And it’s no coincidence that it happened just when Jesus died.

When Jesus died, the curtain in the temple, that barrier that stood between the presence of God and us, it was torn in two from top to bottom. And that leads me to the conclusion that when Jesus died because of his sacrifice, God tore that curtain in two. God tore down the barrier of separation that kept us out of his presence.

and God welcomed us right on in. And it says here that He’s inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain that is through His flesh. Through His body of flesh that was killed on our behalf.

He’s given us a new and living way. He’s given us a new way to relate to God. He’s given us a new way into life.

And with his death, that curtain in the Holy of Holies was torn, both literally and figuratively. Now there’s no curtain that stands between the presence of God and his people. Verse 21 calls him our great high priest. It says he’s the one who enables us to enter into God’s presence.

It says, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, it’s describing Jesus. You read through the book of Hebrews. and over and over and over it describes Jesus as this great high priest. That’s not just something I’m reading into verse 21 here.

It’s all throughout the book of Hebrews. That’s what it’s talking about. And it says our ability to enter in is because of this great high priest. I’ve heard people say, you know, we don’t need a priest anymore.

And they’re partly right. We don’t need a human priest. We don’t need a human priest to make sacrifices on our behalf or to confess to or to do any of these things to carry us into the presence of God. We do need a priest, but Jesus is our great high priest. He’s the only priest we ever need.

And we can come boldly before the throne of grace. We can come boldly into God’s sanctuary because Jesus makes intercession for us. Because He’s carried us into the presence of God.

He enables us to be there. so you see this this passage uses all this imagery of the temple the the curtain the priest the sacrifices all these things that stood in between us and god and it says jesus has made a way now for us to come directly into god’s presence and it describes his death as the tearing of the curtain it describes his blood as the ultimate sacrifice it describes him as the great high priest. If Jesus really is God with us, if that means something, then it means what he did was to come and give us direct access to God where that had been lacking before. We can’t take it for granted that we have access to God.

Oh, that’s the way it always has been. That’s not the way it always has been. That’s not the way it was for thousands of years before Jesus Christ died to solve that problem.

Until then, our connection with God was distant. It was indirect. Because our sin separated us from Him.

But Jesus has brought the solution through His shed blood and through His broken body and through His death on the cross. He’s given us access to God. We can have a relationship with God directly this morning.

We can be in His presence this morning. We can have a relationship. We can know Him as a child knows their Father.

And we can experience His love this morning. All of that is possible because Jesus Christ came to be God with us. And tore back that curtain and unveiled the holiness of God to us and ushers us right into His presence.

Now what are we supposed to do with this this morning? And verse 22 calls us to draw near to God through Jesus Christ. It says in verse 19, since we have this boldness to enter the sanctuary. Verse 21 says, since we have a great high priest over the house of God.

Come to the conclusion in verse 22. Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. See, the application here for you and me is to draw near to God.

Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to come into the presence of God. Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to be near God. And so now our application, our response is to draw near to Him.

It’s what Hebrews tells us to do. We need to understand that our ability to come to God is based solely on what Jesus Christ did. All other religious efforts fall short and leave us still separated from God.

All the temple worship, all the sacrifices, all the sprinklings of blood, all the following of the law, all the religious rituals and festivals, they still left people in their sins and at arm’s length from God. It was only when Jesus Christ paid the price in full that suddenly we have this unfettered access to the God who created us. And today a lot of people think if I can get to heaven by going to church, I’ll just go to church.

God has to like me, right? Right? Not necessarily.

If I just give money to the church, that’ll work. no that’s not going to get you in well God will have to love me I’ll be baptized that’s not enough either I’ll take the Lord’s Supper that’s not enough either I’ll go help the poor I’ll be kind to animals I’ll start I’ll start acting like somebody at the end of one of these Hallmark movies and have an awakening where I become this selfless person and I’m just doing good deeds all the time and then surely God will love me. That’s not how this works.

That’s not how any of this works. All of those things are admirable. You know what?

I think you should go to church and I’m not just saying that because I’m a pastor. I’ve always gone to church but even before I was a pastor, I think it’s good for you. All right?

I think it’s good to give money to the church. I think it’s good to be baptized once you’ve come to faith in Christ. I think it’s good to observe the Lord’s Supper when you understand what it means. I think it’s good to help the poor.

I think it’s good to be selfless. I think all the things that we’re talking about that people say, if I just do this, God will accept me into heaven. All of those are good things, but they all fall short.

Telling you what, if going to the temple and making sacrifices and following the law to the letter, if that’s not going to get you in, what shot do we have with our not always consistent religious efforts? It’s all because of Jesus. It’s all because of his sacrifice on the cross we have access to the Father.

It’s all because of his sacrifice on the cross that we can have a relationship with the Father. And so for believers, this calling to draw near to God through Jesus reminds us that we should never forget that Jesus is the basis for our relationship with the Father. Never let us get to the point where we’ve gotten so good in our lives that we think it all depends on us.

Absolutely none of it depends on us. It all depends on Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross. But also through that, he says in verse 22, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.

And as believers, if you’ve trusted in Christ as your Savior, not only do you need to remember that it’s not because of your good works, it’s because of Jesus, but you also need to remember that through Jesus you have full assurance. This isn’t a deal where you’re having to worry about, have I been good enough? Have I done it all right?

Have I crossed all the T’s and dotted all the eyes, or I’m going to fall out of favor with God. If you’re coming to the Father through Jesus Christ, you have full assurance that he receives you to himself. And for those who’ve never trusted Christ as their Savior, which may speak to some of you in this room this morning, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior before, you need to understand that there’s a spiritual cleansing that’s needed for us to enter in.

That’s not something you do. He says in verse 22 at the end. Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.

This is a picture of the cleansing rituals, the washings that they used to have to go through in the temple. But folks, we need a spiritual cleansing that we can’t do ourselves. In order to come into God’s presence, we need to be cleaned from our sins, and we can’t do it ourselves.

And that may confuse you. You may be thinking, but you just said Jesus did everything. Exactly.

Jesus is the one who cleanses us from our sin. We are, when we trust Christ as our Savior, when we give up trying to be good, when we repent of our sins and we trust Him completely as our one and only Savior, we are washed in His blood in the sense that God cleanses us from our sins. That God looks at us and he sees the blood that was shed, the price that was paid on our behalf by Jesus Christ. And that’s all he sees when he looks at us.

The Bible says he puts our sins as far from us as the east is from the west. Infinitely far away. The Bible says he chooses to remember our sins no more. It’s not that God’s forgetful, that God got amnesia.

He chooses not to remember our sins. It means he chooses not to hold those sins against us. In God’s sight, we are cleansed through the blood of Jesus Christ when we believe in Him and when we trust in Him as our Savior.

This morning, you need to understand that Jesus fulfilled all the demands of God’s law for you. And you won’t get into a relationship with God. You won’t come into the presence of God by being good or doing religious things.

You never could do enough good or religious things to undo the sin that you’ve committed. where we’ve broken the law, where we’ve broken God’s law and we’re separated from him for our sin, Jesus fulfilled the demands of that law so that we could be at peace with God. You need to understand that Jesus paid for your sins in full, not just part of them.

He paid for them in full so that you could have a relationship with the Father. And all that’s left for you this morning, where the scripture tells us to draw near, is for you to stop trusting in your own goodness. Stop saying, if I could just be good enough.

Well, if I could just clean up my life, then I’ll come to God. Let go of that idea. I’m not telling you to go out and be bad.

I’m telling you to stop. I’m not saying stop trying to be good. I’m saying stop trusting in your own goodness and draw near to the Father in the one and only way he set up for you to do it.

Come to him through Jesus Christ today. Because it’s Jesus Christ who tore down that wall of separation, tore that veil in two through his death. It’s Jesus Christ who provided the payment for our sins through his shed blood and his death.

And it’s Jesus Christ who’s the high priest who ushers us into the holy of holies, brings us into the presence of the Father. This morning, if you know that your sin has separated you from God, and if you recognize that you’ve been distant from God, you’ve been separated from him, you keep trying to do religious stuff, and you don’t know why it still feels like God is distant. If you recognize that your sin has kept you apart from God, from a holy God.

This morning, if you’ll believe that Jesus Christ died to pay for your sins in full once and for all, if you’ll believe that he did that and that he rose again to prove it, this morning you can ask God’s forgiveness. You can be saved and you can start the kind of relationship with God you were created to have. You can start that this morning through Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ alone, simply because of what he did for you on the cross when he came to be God with us.